MUMBAI: Seventy thousand commuters have signed a petition that seeks to dissuade the government from regulating fares under the proposed ‘City Taxi Scheme’, private cab aggregator Uber has claimed.

Officials of Uber said that they would forward the petition to the state transport department as a last-ditch attempt to petition the government.

“The support from commuters has increased by 30,000 petitions in the last one week. Citizens don’t want fares to be disturbed as they are competitive. Price regulated by the transport authority is unacceptable,” an official said.

While the deadline to send in suggestions and objections to the proposed scheme was October 30, Uber drivers have requested the transport chief’s office to publish the draft in Marathi, and to give them at least a fortnight thereafter to respond. The scheme had been published on the department’s website only in English.

A driver from Uber said that many of them could not understand the English draft. A delegation of drivers had met senior transport department officials last week.

A transport department official said they are open to suggestions. “But the final draft will be cleared by the [state] transport ministry. We plan to go by our earlier decision of state regulating fares for private taxi aggregators. There is a need for a cap on fares,” said the official. tnn

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